Trees Their Planting and Care 57 



Sometimes this moving can be done best in the winter, 

 the trench about the tree being dug in the fall and the 

 ball allowed to freeze, when it can be more easily handled. 

 But if proper care is exercised no difficulty need be experi- 

 enced in moving large trees either in the fall or spring. 

 Trees with trunks a foot or more in diameter may be moved 

 if an excavation is made under the root system and a large 

 ball of earth is taken up with the roots. To move such 

 trees requires great expense, and appliances of screws 

 and lifting-apparatus for raising and moving many tons 

 of soil. 



Pruning Trees for Transplanting 



No matter how carefully a tree may be dug, many of the 

 roots will be injured, and with trees that have been dug 

 several weeks, as they often are when purchased from a 

 considerable distance, nearly all of the feeding-roots are 

 destroyed, and can supply but a small amount of sap to 

 replace the moisture that evaporates from the large number 

 of branches and buds, so that growth starts very slowly or 

 the trees fail entirely. By removing some of the branches 

 and buds in proportion to the injury of the roots a balance is 

 created. Considerable heading in of the top should be done 

 even if there are but few roots injured and only a small 

 surface of branches and buds to be supplied with sap, for 

 there will be a much better chance of the remaining buds 

 starting, and these will grow with greater vigor than if no 

 pruning were done. (See Fig. 24.) After a few strong active 

 leaves have been grown vigorous new cells will be formed 

 rapidly, instead of the weak sickly growth of the unpruned 

 tree. Figs. 24 and 26 illustrate small trees properly pruned 

 for planting, the dotted lines showing where the cuts should 

 be made, 



